Stranded

"Stranded"
by
W. P. Gerace

Margie swore she was the only one in the household who attempted to do anything. Frankly, at nearly fifty years old, she was disgusted with the idea of her being the only capable being of doing it all. Today was another one of those days as the blazing desert sun bore down on the concrete outside. The last thing she felt like doing was another trip to the store. Lo and behold, they were clear out of the essentials: milk, bread, eggs, and that good-for-nothing boyfriend of hers Ted did nothing but sit on his Lazy boy dingy brown chair, a beer can open up in his pudgy hands sitting back, watching a sports game. That was the extent of what the man did outside of going to his job at the local auto mechanic shop up the road.

Sure enough, the AC in her aged forest green Honda was about to clunk out. Margie could feel the trickle of air slow to a dull ebb. Another thing that her so-called boyfriend was supposed to attend to. She had asked Ted last week if he could look at the car. It needed to act better lately. Sure, hon, I will do it. He had the same nonchalant response as he reclined back with a silver can of Bud Light in his hand. Here she was a week later on the crowded Route 610 between the Northern and Southern Mountains, about to have her AC give out on one of the blazing days of the summer. She remembered Hawk, the weather Wizard as he was called on Northern Arizona TV, his butterball face red dimpled cheeks an example of what too much Arizona sun can cause, saying how it would be the worst scorcher yet as temps climbed well into the mid-hundreds.

Irritated that she once again found herself in a precarious situation, compliments of Ted, the man who did for no one unless one of his buddies or a young girl with a size triple DD breasts decided to take the back roads. Veering off to the left, nearly clipping a young woman in a flashy maroon Corvette, her blonde hair and dark almond eyes glaring at her as if Margie were some creature that should be killed. Flipping the woman the bird, she did not care at this point as she traveled down the winding, dusty road that branched off from Route 610 to the left.

Traveling what seemed forever, Margie's anxiety started to propel as she had the strong inclination that she was lost in no man's land. The road was entirely surrounded by the brown desert on both sides. The lofty Northern Mountains loomed behind her as there appeared to be no signs or any sign of life whatsoever. The signal on her phone as it lay on her seat suddenly went out. The black words flashed across the screen's light green surface. No Signal.

The unknown road she was on clearly needed to be made for travel purposes. Rocks and debris scattered all over the place clunked underneath her vehicle. Swaying across the street, almost colliding with the front of her car, a dented steel garbage can scurried across the thoroughfare. Stomping her brakes and twisting her wheel away from the unyielding guard rail ahead, she nearly collided with the rusty surface of the metal. The motor started to make this awful clunking sound as a thick, sooty black cloud spiraled up from the hood. Jerking back and forth, Margie had no control over the 10-year-old car. A sudden clamorous bang erupted as it stopped just inches from the guard rail.

"Shit. "Stomping the wheel, Margie wished she had Ted with her now so she could just strangle him.

From a distance, she could hear barking dogs and some small conversation. Looking back over her back seat was a small, dilapidated, dusty beige Roadhouse. Surrounding the property was a rickety wooden fence where the dogs and two people stood talking. They looked like an older couple, a man with fluffy white hair and a scrawny, much older woman, her chestnut hair all frizzed out as if she stuck herself in an electric socket. They looked oddly weird and frightening, but it was hot as blazes out here, and she had to attempt to survive. She was in the middle of nowhere, and she needed gas. They could give her a lift to a local gas station.

Walking out of her car, the cloud of smoke flying up into the late afternoon sky, the sun a brilliant reddish glow as if it were a colossal fireball about to set the earth on fire, Margie's skin began to sizzle as if she were literally being cooked. Each step in this intense heat brought another wave of unreality upon her. Slowly, she felt as if she did not know where or what she was doing. It was as if the sun's rays were searing through her flesh and skull at this very moment. The roadhouse ahead wavered in a red haze. The couple and their dogs dissipated as if they were never there. Looking back, her abandoned car, which she swore was only a few short feet away, also had evaporated into thin air.

Stranded in this no man's land, Margie's arms blistered as the never-ending rays beat upon her flesh. Trickles of blood oozed out of her skin from numerous orifices. Tiny reddish black creatures with incisive teeth sprouted from the desert surrounding her. Their eyes were a dull black. A heavy dizziness fell upon Margie as she collapsed to the concrete. Those bugs scattered all over her, their needle-like noses pricking her skin, sucking her blood, feasting upon her. She could hear their powerful jaws slurp her lifeline through their mouths. Right before losing consciousness, there stood Ted smiling at her.